Re: Opinion piece in NYT; responses needed

On Sun, 28 Jan 1996 19:33:19 -0500, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:

>>   The New York Times, January 2, 1996, Business, p. 14
>>
>>
>>   Viewpoint: J. Walker Smith
>>
>>   Standoff in Cyberspace Gulch
>>
>>
[..]
>[I'm going to try to make myself write a letter to the NYT in response to
>that viewpoint, making some of these points I'm saying it's important to
>make, but you should too. :)  ]

Don't leave out an important point ignored by both sides of the debate
all too often (esp. by the "decency" folk): the structure of the 'net
itself (well, sort of).

It's a decentered network (or set of networks) designed to get
information to its addressee.  Data flows through several nodes and
networks until it reaches its destination.  If it can't get through
one path, it goes through the other.

This isn't just for mail but all "packets" that flow on the net: web
pages, file transfers, telnetting, etc. [A good segue to arguing
"security related to privacy can go here...]

Limiting content or access is only superficially impossible.  The
international scope of the 'net makes even agreeing to standards
impossible.

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>>>>> "Mutatis" == Mutatis Mutantdis <wlkngowl@unix.asb.com> writes:

    Mutatis> It's a decentered network (or set of networks) designed
    Mutatis> to get information to its addressee.  Data flows through
    Mutatis> several nodes and networks until it reaches its
    Mutatis> destination.  If it can't get through one path, it goes
    Mutatis> through the other.

This is unfortunately a wide-spread myth. While it's true for mail and
news, it's not for IP packets. Witness:

5:41 bogk@habari% traceroute www.webcom.com                                   ~
traceroute to s1000e.webcom.com (206.2.192.66), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  jambo-110 (160.45.110.1)  3 ms  2 ms  2 ms
 2  heiss.router.fu-berlin.de (160.45.1.1)  2 ms  1 ms  1 ms
 3  Duesseldorf7.WiN-IP.DFN.DE (188.1.133.65)  38 ms  45 ms  69 ms
 4  ipgate2.win-ip.dfn.de (193.174.74.200)  69 ms  56 ms  71 ms
 5  * ipgate2.win-ip.dfn.de (193.174.74.200)  41 ms !H *
 6  ipgate2.win-ip.dfn.de (193.174.74.200)  44 ms !H *  39 ms !H

BTW: Deutsche Telekom (actually DeTeBerkom, a 100% daughter) is one of
DFN's major players.

Andreas


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On 30 Jan 1996, Andreas Bogk wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> >>>>> "Mutatis" == Mutatis Mutantdis <wlkngowl@unix.asb.com> writes:
> 
>     Mutatis> It's a decentered network (or set of networks) designed
>     Mutatis> to get information to its addressee.  Data flows through
>     Mutatis> several nodes and networks until it reaches its
>     Mutatis> destination.  If it can't get through one path, it goes
>     Mutatis> through the other.
> 
> This is unfortunately a wide-spread myth. While it's true for mail and
> news, it's not for IP packets. Witness:

No, it is the truth. The fact is that DT has gone and intentionally broken
*all* routes to webcom.com -- the SJ Merc said 129,000. 

But the point is moot. Try:

http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/zundel/pr.004.compuser.html
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/declan/www/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/pr.004.compuser.html

Is DT going to block every machine in stanford.edu, cmu.edu, mit.edu, 
uiuc.edu, harvard.edu, berkeley.edu, and so on?

Or from any machine with access to AFS, which includes thousands of 
academic and a few corporate machines in Germany, the following file 
system paths will work. With a simple symbolic link, any machine with AFS 
can become a mirror site.

/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/declan/www/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/pr.004.compuser.html
/afs/ir.stanford.edu/users/l/llurch/WWW/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/pr.004.compuser.html

Is DT going to block TCP port 80 and UDP ports 7000-7029 from every
machine in the world? 

-rich